St. Francis routs Aurora Christian
All birthdays should be as memorable as Jack Porter's 18th.
The St. Francis senior defensive lineman had 3 sacks and forced a fumble on one of them in the Spartans' 39-7 rout of Aurora Christian on Friday night in Glen Ellyn.
“We had a lot of fire, we had a lot of energy coming in off a big win last week,” Porter said of a 42-7 win over Aurora Central Catholic, “and we just had to keep it going because we knew that we needed to win this to get to the playoffs.”
On the other side of the ball as an offensive lineman, Porter helped the Spartans rack up 316 yards rushing on the night.
“Me and my other guard, Nick Pfeiffer, are just taught really well. Nick has been a great leader on our offensive line,” Porter added. “He's been on the offensive line since he was a sophomore and he's just been doing a great job making sure we're all in the right spots doing the right thing.”
Porter wasn't the only one making big plays defensively. Quarterback/defensive back Nick Donati intercepted two Aurora Christian passes, and Mike Yanan added a third interception. Kyle Bosch added a sack and recovered the fumble Porter forced, and Bob Miller also had a sack.
“We had a great game plan going in,” Porter said. “We knew that their quarterback was going to scramble, going to run, and we just had to keep contain and make sure we minimized the running lanes.”
“It's tough to swallow, to be very honest with you,” Eagles assistant coach Dave Beebe said. “You come off the high of last week (a 40-14 win vs. Immaculate Conception) and I think we just came out flat. I don't know if we were ready to play. I don't know if we were looking ahead to next week or what the story is, but we just weren't ready to play.”
St. Francis (6-3, 2-3 Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division) earned a playoff berth with the win. Aurora Christian (5-4, 1-4) likely will have enough playoff points to get in also.
“We're in,” Beebe said. “I've done a lot of research, we're definitely in. But certainly this is not the way you want to go into the playoffs. But we've traveled a million miles in a week before, and we're going to have to do it again. We're just going to have to do it again.”
On offensive Donati threw 2 touchdown passes and ran for another. Colin O'Donnell caught one of those TD passes and added a 93-yard scoring run as the Spartans took a 26-0 lead into halftime.
“They were fanning out on all the sweeps and I figured I was going to have to cut one up sooner or later, so I got my chance and squeezed through one and just saw open field,” O'Donnell said.
Ben Trimble ran for 99 yards and 1 TD for the Spartans, and Yanan caught a 21-yard TD pass.
The Eagles' lone highlight came in the third quarter, when they blocked a punt deep in St. Francis territory. Brandon Mayes recovered and ran it 2 yards for a touchdown.